Reaching new heights: How have Europeans grown so tall?

Children born using in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) are likely to be taller than their naturally conceived counterparts, New Zealand researchers have found.The study by Auckland University's Liggins Institute found IVF children conceived from fresh, rather than frozen, embryos were about 2.6 centimetres (1.02 inches) taller than non-IVF children by the age of six.The research, which examined about 200 children, found the height difference was statistically significant, even after adjusting for variables such as the parents' height.

(cc photo by dionhinchcliffe)

Astronauts in space can grow up to 3 percent taller during the time spent living in microgravity, NASA scientists say. That means that a 6-foot-tall (1.8 meters) person could gain as many as 2 inches (5 centimeters) while in orbit.

Roger Lewis makes the case in The Washington Post for taller buildings in DC. I agree with what he says, though I think he’s far too ginger about calling for taller buildings in the existing central business district. Most people seem to think the downtown height limit has something to do with the Capitol Dome. So what if we replaced the current 130 foot limit with something closer to the actual 288 foot Capitol building? Say we let people go up to 260 feet?

To amplify Atrios’ point a bit, while of course taller buildings will make an area denser, you don’t actually need buildings to be particularly tall in order to have walkable urbanism. This video from Dan Zack indicates that people are actually pretty bad at guesstimating the residential density of various areas, primarily because of an over-reliance on building height as a cue:

Alex Tabarrok links to some new research further establishing the conclusion that being tall makes people happy:

Here is the abstract to a new paper by Angus Deaton and Raksha Arora.

An Ottawa historian’s discovery of a 19th-century manuscript previously unseen by scholars has shed new light on the 1867 unearthing of “Champlain’s Astrolabe,” the navigational instrument famously — though controversially — believed to have been lost by French explorer Samuel de Champlain during his pioneering journey up the Ottawa River exactly four centuries ago this year.